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National Youth Orchestra/Hazlewood at Festival Hall

Richard Morrison

April 16 2012, 1:26pm, The Times

I rank the National Youth Orchestra among Britain’s cultural glories. Its standards are phenomenal; the 170-odd teenagers brim with energy and enthusiasm, yet are disciplined and acutely intelligent in the way they usually approach music. They need and deserve to be challenged by the most profound masterpieces and the world’s finest conductors. Mostly they are. But this bitty, blaring and gimmicky concert seemed to be more about ticking political boxes than galvanising exceptional young musicians.

From its cheap title, Folk Explosion!, to its school speech-day presentation (orchestra members awkwardly reading out introductions), to its choppy programming (Kodály’s Háry János suite sliced incomprehensibly into six chunks and interspersed with other “folk-inspired” pieces), to the trendy inclusion of members of the folk band Bellowhead, who added almost…